Attempting to Remove Rogue Space

I have a custom filter for WordPress' wp_link_pages which allows both next/previous links and pagination to be used. However, I have an extra linked space in front of 'Next page' I can't seem to get rid of. I need to maintain the spacing while de-linking the extra space in front of "Next page". I was able to figure out how to remove the space itself, but I really just need to remove the linking from the space.